Small and large clown loaches mix?

[henward]

ok

i have a group of medium to large clown loaches.... 6cms to 20cms about 16 to 18, i dont remember.

I am thinking of getting a school of small clowns, so its cheap, and so i can see whcih on grows fastest and largest quckly......

should i put them all into my 1200Litre?

Or should i separate small ones wtiht he medium to large group?

i figure, theya re schooling fish,a nd would benefit from having a huge school.

if i feed, i will certainly feed enough so everyone gets food...but will the small one actually get food?

keep in mind, i am not shy with feeding or have the need tob e:d

i will feed tetra bits, nls thera 1 1mm pellets and beef heart discus mix

[R32GOTMLK]

id mix them

ive got 40 and range from 4cm to 15cm ish

[henward]

what do you feed yours?

they all get food to eat/

[R32GOTMLK]

just flake shrimp pellets blood worms and bottom feeder pellets yeah they get the food before anyone else in the tank lol

[henward]

cool sounds good!

guess will mix!

[Fruju]

I looked at a conversation on MFK, they pretty much said that smaller loaches get outcompeted by the larger ones, similar size = ok and similar growth rates. Might look cool altogether but might not establish good grow rates throughout. An opinion.

[David R]

I think if there's enough food floating around the smaller ones will be fine. You've seen how I feed my geo tank? Crumble and flake going everywhere, it'll get cleaned up.

Just make sure you quarantine them, LFS clowns are pretty much guaranteed to come with whitespot, don't put your large ones at risk.

[henward]

so you quarantine them with wtih spot cure?

how should i quarantine them?

I am heavily considering separating them first anyways, and can act as quarantine for a few months, then when certain, mix them together.

no harm in that.

i want them eating well befoer i mix them i guess.

but thinking bout it, competition makes them eat more too.

but if i get a school of 20 small ones, there is competition none the less.